To me, this looks like it could be a disaster for New Yorkers. I remember years ago you though twice before vising the city. They it changed, and it became s "Safe city." I am afraid that this is going to change in the future thanks to NYCC. The NYPD is losing control, another case of Amateurs attempting to control Professionals .... and it never works.
The New York city council has voted to pass bills that will create an outside watchdog for the nation's biggest police department and make it easier for people to file profiling claims against it, overriding mayoral vetoes. The lawmakers voted Thursday on the new oversight at the New York police department.
Proponents see the legislation as a check on a police force that's come under scrutiny for its heavy use of a tactic known as stop and frisk and its extensive surveillance of Muslims.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg had vetoed the legislation as unnecessary. He says it will jeopardize the city's safety. The lawmakers overruled him.
A federal judge recently ruled the NYPD discriminated against minorities with its stop and frisk program and ordered a monitor to oversee changes.
The measures mark the most aggressive legislative effort in years to put new checks on the NYPD. And the vote comes less than two weeks after US district court Judge Shira Scheindlin's order for a monitor to focus on stop and frisk, a practice she said the department had used in a way that violated the rights of hundreds of thousands of black and Hispanic men. The city is appealing.
The lawsuit-related component of the legislation passed in June with just the 34 votes needed to override a veto. At a rally before the meeting, activists chanted "34" and held signs that said, "Override."
